


Scenario 22

by rideswraptors



Series: Kastle Scenarios [22]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Also I haven't watched the new season so there's no spoilers, F/M, Guys I really do love Matt even if it doesn't seem like it, Karen's just mad, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 13:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16535627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rideswraptors/pseuds/rideswraptors
Summary: “You sure?” He lifted a brow now, not asking because he didn’t think she knew what she wanted, but because...well, Frank knew her. Knew her better than most people, and understood that sometimes, she added salt to her own wounds just to feel the burn instead of the numbness. Just like he did. Maybe she was making up the differences between him and everyone else in her life, maybe it was all in her head, maybe she wanted him to be different. It didn’t really change anything.





	Scenario 22

She knew he was there. Maybe Matt did too, but he didn’t say anything about it. He kept on with his tired tirade about her safety, how she was ruining her chances at having something normal, that Frank was dangerous and unpredictable. Karen listened, of course, she always listened to Matt. That didn’t mean she thought any of it was right. Okay, maybe the unpredictable part was somewhat true. But several months of late nights with Frank Castle meant that she’d learned to better understand his patterns. Someone like Matt wouldn’t understand. Even if they were on the same side of a war. 

 

When Karen remained unresponsive to his bullshit, Matt was leaving and slamming the door behind him. One day, he’d figure out that being sanctimonious didn’t make you a better person. One day he’d figure out that it wasn’t up to him what people did and did not forgive. Arrogant, son of a--

 

Her thought process was abruptly cut off when Frank slung himself through her window and dropped to the floor. He lifted up the bag strapped around his shoulder and chest and discarded it between the bookshelf and the wall. Exactly where it was supposed to go. He toed off his boots, left them on the hardwood.

 

Karen sighed heavily, put her hands to her hips. “You’re here early.”

 

Frank sniffed. “Dead end.” He looked up at her, eyes cautious and searching hers. She knew that look. She knew it because Trish, Jess, Danny, Luke, they all wore that same look every time she argued with Matt. They wanted answers and resolution because they wanted their team to work. It didn’t work if she and Matt were spitting bullets at each other. 

 

“Don’t start,” she sneered, walking towards her kitchen. 

 

“About the Mombasa cartel? Thought you wanted info.” 

 

Karen stopped dead and turned her head back to him. 

 

“Work,” she paraphrased slowly, blinking as she processed. He shrugged with a nod.

 

“Work.” 

 

He was watching her expectantly, but with no ulterior motives in his look. Karen sniffed and wrapped her arms around herself. 

 

“Sorry, I’m not used to people who don’t immediately insert their opinions.” That comment drew a wry grin from him, and it tasted a little like a victory. Karen was well aware that Frank Castle had little to smile about anymore. She liked being the cause of it, even if she was pissed off at a friend. He ducked his head, brows curved.

 

“You actually want my opinion?” he asked skeptically. Only Frank would presume that his thoughts were unwelcome in her personal life. It was a topic he’d skirted for a long while after his entrance back into her life as Pete Castiglione. She had thoughts about it, but it seemed they were both treading carefully. She pulled her lips in. Maybe that needed to stop. 

 

“Yeah,” she answered firmly. “Yeah, I do.” 

 

“You sure?” He lifted a brow now, not asking because he didn’t think she knew what she wanted, but because...well, Frank knew her. Knew her better than most people, and understood that sometimes, she added salt to her own wounds just to feel the burn instead of the numbness. Just like he did. Maybe she was making up the differences between him and everyone else in her life, maybe it was all in her head, maybe she  _ wanted _ him to be different. It didn’t really change anything.

 

Karen shrugged. “You don’t lie to me. You don’t coddle me. You don’t pretend that I live in some fucked up bubble. So, yeah, why not? These days you’re probably the most qualified to give advice anyway.” Frank snorted. “No, it’s true. Think about it. I don’t know a single damn person who had a normal, functioning relationship at any point in their life.” She bobbled her head. “Other than Luke. But Jess murdered his wife when she was under mind control and now they’re obsessed with each other, and poor Claire is caught in the middle, so I’m pretty sure that cancels it out.” She sighed and slumped, exhausted by everyone’s individual nonsense. Frank’s face looked a mixture of confused and repulsed. She waved him off, “It’s a whole  _ thing _ that’s not really worth going into.”

 

“Clearly,” he grunted, moving to the fridge. “You want a beer?” 

 

Karen flopped onto her couch, draping an arm over her eyes, “Please.” 

 

He opened two, brought them over, handed one to her, and sat at the opposite end of the couch, taking a long pull from his. Watching her. He was always watching her. Watching out for her, too.  _ Ángel oscuro _ . That’s what her neighbor called him when she’d seen him perched across the street on a rooftop, gun slung over his shoulder, one in his hands. The newspapers called him the Punisher; Hell’s Kitchen called him  _ Castigador _ or  _ Ángel _ . He protected her neighborhood, and therefore them, so they left offerings outside of windows, on street corners, painting his sign everywhere they could so criminals knew who spoke for them. To most of the world, he was dead. To the people of her neighborhood? He was the patron saint of Hell’s Kitchen. Not even Matt had earned that right. 

 

“All right,” she said, taking a sip of beer, “hit me.” 

 

Frank set his bottle down, cleared his throat quite seriously, and turned bodily to face her. Obviously, he was revving up for a doozy. 

 

“Fuck him.” 

 

Karen’s head reared back, startled.

 

“I--what?”

 

“Yeah, fuck him and his opinions.” Right, that was the version he meant. “Stop listening. He starts talking, kick him to the curb and tell him to stay gone until he can shut the hell up. Tha’s what my old lady used to do to me, and it worked.” 

 

Karen tilted her head in consideration, “You and Maria were married, it’s different.” 

 

“Not really,” he argued back. “Cause if he can’t get his shit together, he risks you kicking him out of your life altogether. Red won’t do that.” 

 

Quite honestly, it wasn’t what she’d expected. Frank had a lot of thoughts about Matt Murdock, and most of them had nothing to do with Karen. She was a little surprised that out of all of the advice he could have given, he chose something meant to keep Matt in her life. She bit her lip, doubting that Matt would have done the same. But that was the fundamental difference between the two of them. Matt did what he did because he thought it was the “right” thing to do. Frank did what he did, said what he said, because it needed saying in order to produce an optimal outcome. Part of his charm. 

 

“You think?” 

 

“I don’t think, I know. He’s a stubborn son of a bitch, but he cares about you. That much I know.” 

 

Karen leaned more fully into the couch, head in her hand as she watched him. 

 

“And what if we were fighting like that? Would you say the same thing?” 

 

He shot her an unreadable look, one she’d not seen from him before. It made her heart race and her stomach flip, and she felt like a dumb kid with a crush. Frank leaned forward to get his beer, breaking eye contact and not returning it. 

 

“We’d never fight like that.” 

 

“Oh really?” she laughed, “because you’re just that agreeable?” 

 

“Fuck no,” he answered seriously. “Your work is important. Probably more important than mine and his because you bring all the muck and shit into the daylight. Make people acknowledge their sins publicly. Without death or bloodshed. You force atonement.” He shrugged. “Pisses ‘em off and puts you in the crosshairs, sure, but at least it means something. Red’s got some holy war he thinks he’s fighting, but he’ll never win it. Can’t get to ‘em all. Can’t stop it all. He can’t be everywhere. He’ll die as the Devil and all he’ll ever be is some urban myth.” He drank more of his beer, tilted the neck in her direction, “But you? Damn it, Karen, those scumbags are scared shitless of you. Because what you do caves in their whole operation; they’ve got to adapt and evolve, change everything up. More shitbags go down in a day because of one of your articles than I’ll ever manage in a lifetime. 

 

Karen swallowed, hard, trying to steady herself and not let her voice betray her awe, how shaken up she was by his words. 

 

“And what about you, Frank? What are you fighting for?” 

 

He hung his head a little and tilted it to look at her, eyes dark and hard, completely unwavering. 

 

“A spot in your corner. What you do puts you in their crosshairs. I like to help with that.” 

 

She licked her lips. “To what end?” 

 

His blink was slow, his nod slight, the lift of his shoulders so small that someone else might have missed it. Frank’s whole person was guarded, shut off to anyone looking to intrude. Except his eyes. She’d read several reports that claimed Frank Castle had “dead, soulless” eyes. While it had never been the most important detail, it had been very telling to Karen. She was the only one who had never believed the myth of the Punisher, that he was some kind of emotionless animal disconnected from everyone and everything. Numb, maybe, but not lacking in soul or emotion. She’d seen that when he was sitting in the hospital bed when she actually met him. She’d heard it in his voice when he pleaded not guilty and asked her to stay. Everything was confirmed when he asked about those damn dishes. Fuck, it had nearly broken her. His family was massacred, he was left for dead, he’d murdered dozens of people, and he still thought about whether or not they’d cleaned up after breakfast that morning. Monsters didn’t do that. People with dead eyes didn’t do that. 

 

“To keep you safe,” he croaked, voice sounding tight and uneven. Not like him. 

 

“That’s it?” she asked softly, fingering at the fringe on her throw pillow, unable to make herself look at him. “No bigger mission?” 

 

“There  _ is _ no bigger mission,” Frank told her firmly. His voice, that commanding tone, lit a fire in her belly and force her eyes back to his. Earnest, dark, like out of one of her torrid dreams of him when she was too keyed up and alone. “If Murdock can’t see that, that’s his fucking problem.” 

 

“Frank--” she breathed out, hardly voicing at all. 

 

“I got to Rawlins for my family. Because they deserved justice. But everything after that?” His lips shrugged, “That’s all you.” 

 

“You shouldn’t say things like that.” He had too many enemies to walk around saying things like that.

 

“I’m not gonna apologize for finding something--someone--to care about. Caring about you won’t change who I am and what I do, but I think twice. I make sure I’ll get out alive.” Unconsciously, she flung a hand out to him, to his arm, an echo of that moment in the elevator when she was checking that he was all right. She just needed to touch him, make sure he was real. Frank covered her hand on his arm with his own. 

 

“And unlike Murdock, I don’t need you to be some pure, untouched princess to do that.” 

 

Karen huffed a laugh through her nose, an unbidden smile stretching her lips wide. 

 

“I am...none of those things.”

 

“I know,” he answered immediately. “S’what I like about you.” He snorted. “You’re a stubborn pain in the ass who wants the whole goddamn truth no matter what the cost. Someone needs to watch your six while you do it, so that’s what I do.” 

 

“Yeah,” she agreed thoughtfully, “yeah, you do.”

 

Frank nodded and took a pull of his beer.

 

“So, no, Karen, no I wouldn’t fight with you about how you decide to live your life. It’s not my place.” 

 

A single thought crystalized for Karen in that moment. She wasn’t sure exactly when it happened, or why, or even if it made any sense. But it was true and it was there, and there was no point in denying it.

 

“What if I wanted it to be?” 

 

Frank froze before turning to look at her, brow arched.

 

“What?” 

 

“You heard me. What if I wanted it to be your place to argue with me about that stuff? I mean...you don’t...and I don’t ask you, but you always help.” She had to shake her head to clear it. “You always help and you never hesitate and you  _ should _ have a say.”

 

He tilted his head forward in her direction. “Don’t say shit you can’t take back.” 

 

“I don’t want to take it back. It’s the truest thing I’ve said in months. You’ve  _ never  _ lied to me. You’ve never kept things from me to protect me. You don’t force me to stay behind, you ask for my help. I trust you. I have literally watched you murder people, and I trust you more than my closest friends. You have a one-track mind and you romanticize the hell out of everything, but you care  _ so _ much. And not because it’s the right thing to do either, not because you have to or feel obligated or think it’s your job. You just care.” She shrugged helplessly. “And sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy worrying about you and if you’re okay because I know the lengths you’ll go to for a stranger. Someone you barely know.” She spread her arms. “Fuck, Frank, you broke out of jail and had to make sure that I knew you weren’t what they said you were. I was pointing a gun at you, and you did the most to protect me that day. I can’t even--” Karen broke off suddenly, covering her mouth with her hand to stop the sob. She startled a little when she felt his hand on her back; she hadn’t realized he’d gotten so close. But she didn’t even hesitate to lean into the circle of his arms, and he wrapped her in a tight hug. Let her cry. Didn’t bother trying to soothe or placate her to get her to stop. Just held her. She felt his lips press to the top of her head, felt him nuzzle there. She gripped his shirt tighter.

 

“He’ll come around, Karen,” he whispered into her hair. Karen sniffed and sat back up, eyes clouded with tears. He wiped away the ones that had slipped down her cheeks. 

 

“I don’t understand why everyone has to  _ come around _ to me,” she told him miserably, and then tugged lightly on his shirt. “‘Cept you.” 

 

“Maria always said I wasn’t too cerebral. More action-oriented.”

 

That made her smile, and she lowered her head to shake it. She and Maria would have gotten along like a house on fire. That much she was sure of. Nagging Frank was a much easier task when she contextualized it with “what Maria would have wanted.” 

 

“Hey,” he said softly, hand coming to her chin, turning her face back toward him. His eyes darted around her face, ensuring he had her full attention. “There’s nothing  _ wrong _ with you. Just because he can’t put his horned head out of his--”

 

Frank never did finish that statement. Karen let her head fall forward, caught his words, kissed him. It felt natural, all-consuming and yet perfectly calm. She couldn’t hear anything outside the pounding of blood in her ears, couldn’t feel anything but his lips responding to hers, matching her press for press. Her heart was in shambles, she was a mess, and he was there, present, with nothing but kindness and gentle support. And,  _ oh shit _ , he was too good at this. She felt herself lift a hand to his cheek, move herself closer into his space, let his tongue slip into her mouth. Karen pushed her chest up against him, twisted her hips, looking for friction she probably wasn’t going to get.

 

She was not expecting him to clamp two big hands to her waist and lift her onto his lap. Nope. Not at all. He pulled her astride his lap, hands on her thighs, and tilted his face up for her to kiss again. Karen more than happily obliged, dipping down, hands cupping his head, letting her tongue glide in and out of his mouth. Frank was tearing her apart at the seams and slowly piecing her back together. She moved on top of him, but she was so desperate for him that he had control of the kiss, of their pace, of how she moved.  

 

Then all of the sudden, he stopped. Her resulting whine was  _ pathetic _ .

 

*

 

Frank felt his whole body shudder at the sound of her protest when he hit the brakes on whatever was happening between them. He didn’t want to. He  _ really fucking  _ didn’t want to. But he knew himself. He knew what would happen if he went down this road and she...He could handle it. He could handle anything Karen asked of him. But he had to  _ know _ . 

 

He exhaled slowly, “I can make you forget. No problem. But you gotta tell me now, cause if we do this, and you send me packing, I will  _ lose it _ .”

 

Karen’s eyes were glazed over, pupils blown wide. She had to physically shake her head before she could even answer him. Yeah, that was exactly why he wanted this conversation to happen first. Shit, he would fuck her until she passed out and do it all over again with gusto. He’d live at her beck and call if that’s what she wanted.

 

“What?” she blurted out, finally, after what felt like a full minute. 

 

Frank licked his lips, mustering up whatever courage he had left in his bones. 

 

“I’m asking if this is about Murdock,” he told her, trying to keep his voice even. Stay sane and reasonable. It was getting increasingly difficult because he could feel her damp heat against his crotch and he was getting a little dizzy just thinking about. “S’fine if it is, I just---need to know, you know, before.” 

 

She stared at him for a full 75 seconds. Frank knew this because he counted every last one. Her expression was unreadable, incomprehensible, and he hated it so much. He could live with shutting this whole thing down. He really, really could. She could kick him out right then, and he would go, and he would never bring it up or hold it against her. He’d bring her leads and eliminate threats against her and keep her fridge full when she forgot to get to the market. He’d do it. But he needed to be able to mentally prepare for it. 

 

In a move that shocked the hell out of him, she leaned forward and pressed a long kiss to his forehead. His chest clenched and he had to shut his eyes against it because it was just this side of too much for him to handle. Karen was the only source of gentleness in his life anymore, and he just wasn’t used to it. Her body curved around his neck and head, protectively, stubbornly forcing his full attention to her. He lifted his head to look up at her as she let her thumbs drift down his hairline and jaw. 

 

“Did you really think I ate the fruit unwillingly?” she whispered, so quietly that he almost didn’t hear her. It didn’t sound like her, like something she would say, but more of a quote, though he didn’t understand the reference. He watched her throat work hard to swallow and he felt himself tense. 

 

“No,” she answered with a shake of his head, “This? This is not about him. He’s got no place between us. I don’t need to forget him cause I have  _ you _ .” He must not have looked entirely convinced and felt his brow pucker in protest of what she was saying. Karen just sighed and tipped his head back to kiss him, long and slow, lingering to get a response out of him. 

 

“He said I was in love with you,” she breathed against his lips. “That it was clouding my judgment.” Her eyes met his and held. “He was right. About the first part.” 

 

“Karen,” he ground out, turning his head from her. She didn’t let him get too far, cupped his face, kissed his cheek, chin, and brow, guiding him back to her. Like she always did. He felt like he was drowning, and her mouth on his was the only thing keep him from being swept away in it all. 

 

“I love you, Frank, I do. Everyone seems to know that ‘cept you.” 

 

Heat shot right down to his core, and in that moment, he didn’t seem to have much control of himself. He wrapped his arms around her, bucked up, and flipped them so that they were horizontal on the couch, her tucked under him, body cradling his. Karen wound her arms and legs around him, letting out pretty sighs and gasps as they kissed and moved against each other. He latched onto her neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark, loving it when she arched up into him. Seeking heat, seeking friction, didn’t matter, he’d give it. He chanted back his own confession against her lips and skin, not bothering to check himself or filter what words rolled off his tongue. 

 

He loved her, and that was the only thing that made sense to him.

 


End file.
